Useful Pages

Thursday, 24 July 2014

Animator's Survival Kit for the iPad

The Animator's Survival Kit

As every student of animation knows, the best book for learning animation is The Animator's Survival Kit. For over a decade it has been the industry standard textbook. The only problem with the book is you can't see the animation - which is where the iPad version comes in. It's like having both the DVD series and the book rolled into one, because it doesn't just tell you how to do stuff - it shows you how to do it as well.

The iPad feels as if it is made specially for a book of this kind. The
digital ASK has many of the traditional features of a book - plain text,
nice illustrations. But, as you scroll through
the pages, you keep bumping into little video icons, peering out at you
invitingly from the pages. Click on these, and you get a video
introduction to the chapter, giving a personal view on why it's
important to read it, and what you will learn.

Other little icons pull up a short animated video explanation of the
principle being addressed - much of this material is pulled from the ASK
DVD set. Confused about overlapping action? Ones vs Two's? Straight
Ahead vs Pose to Pose? A short video shows you what it all means, and
shows you in simple clear terms exactly how these principles get applied in practice.

Scroll bar feature lets you scrub frames in real time

And even the videos are interactive. You can pause them, scroll through
them, step through them frame by frame. It's like having the perfect
animation tutor right there in the classroom with you, equipped with all
the right bits of kit - video, power point, lectures books - but all at
your disposal in exactly the format you want. And best of all - you
don't have to go to school to learn it.

It is obvious that a great deal of thought and effort has gone into the
presentation. The interface is very easy to get the hang of, and simple
to operate. Tap the screen and the chapters are revealed on a scroll bar
at the base of the screen - so you can easily navigate to the bits you
need.

In short - it's the best £25 you will spend on any device to help you
learn animation. But you have to buy the iPad first, of course.

Here's a list of stuff that comes with it:

The Animator’s Survival Kit Expanded Edition - that is to say the whole book - for the iPad

More than 100 animated examples of the principles of animation - taken from The Animator’s Survival Kit Animated DVD series, and inserted into the relevant sections of the text. You can slow these down and watch them frame-by-frame.

Dad's 50-years-in-the-making Circus Drawings animation

Video introductions for the chapters - by the author. 80 this year!

"Sensitive navigation", which "fades away gracefully away when not needed"